Fractured
by Cartographical
Summary: A stressful weekend for Castle and Beckett.
1. Chapter 1

**Author:** Enwhee41319

**Title: **Fractured

**Summary: **Beckett has a small problem. Luckily, Castle can help.

**Notes: **This story is set sometime after 3x01, A Deadly Affair.

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Castle is always trying to make an entrance, so of course he rounds a corner a little too sharply and slams into a stand of medical supplies, sending a flurry of white packets skittering all over the floor.

"It's like Christmas in…" Ryan cocks his head, "September. Good one, Castle," he says, nodding at the mess of plastic-wrapped gauze.

"Where is she?" he wheezes dramatically.

"Christ, Castle, take a seat," Esposito says as he shoves a flimsy plastic chair at the author. "Who'd you talk to, anyway?"

"Montgomery. He said Beckett was at Bellevue. But the cell service, in the garage, and then the damn phone, and I just took long logical moment to ponder and Bellevue was only fifteen blocks so I thought, just run it."

"I feel like I'm listening to James Joyce," Ryan says, flinging himself into a chair next to Castle.

"Come _on_," says Castle, whining unhappily. He's pretty sure by now that Beckett's not in danger of dying, because Ryan and Esposito aren't spectacularly soaked in her blood or staring at him with serious stony eyes or crying softly in the corner, but damn it, he just sprinted fifteen blocks, four of them long ones, on a particularly hot September day, and there is a _reason_ that Beckett is in the hospital.

"Asshole suspect in the Dewaters case trips over his own feet running from us. He's at the top of the stairs and Beckett's a step below him, you know, to cut him off, and they tumble all the way down together. I swear to you they've barely hit the bottom of the stairwell and Beckett's got him in cuffs. None of us knew she snapped her shinbone until she tried to stand and fell right back down."

Castle winces. "How is she?"

"She was pissed as hell. Now she's quite peaceful, thanks to the anesthesiologist," Esposito says. "Wish we could keep him around the precinct."

"_Anesthesiologist_?" Castle bites out.

"Relax, bro. Her bone was a mess, you should have seen it, looked like something out of _Alien_. The doctor refused to even try to set it without her being put under."

"But she's good now?"

Lanie steps around the corner. "As good as you can expect for a skinny thing like her getting bowled down the stairs by someone who's got a hundred fifty pounds on her. Bruised ribs, some other contusions, and she'll be sore as hell, but the leg's the only real damage, the docs say. They also say no being on her own for the next day or so, but I say she needs someone around until she gets off those damn crutches."

Ryan and Esposito look quickly between Castle and Lanie. "Well of course she'll stay with me," Castle huffs, regarding Lanie critically. "Do you even have an elevator in your building?"

"I'm sorry, Castle, are you judging me?" Lanie asks threateningly.

"No no no," he responds, shaking his head quickly. "It's just that you are an actual person with an actual job and actual responsibilities outside of your apartment and I am an overgrown child with almost nothing better to do than cater to Beckett's every whim."

"That's better," Lanie says. "But I think we all know why it's not a good idea."

Castle heaves a sigh. "I can't –" he begins, but uncharacteristically runs out of words. He tries again. "Any relationship that means I can't take care of Beckett when she needs it isn't a relationship I'm interested in being in."

Lanie rolls her eyes at him. "You're damn stupid, Castle."

"I – I have nothing to say to that."

"Fine. _Fine._ You can take care of her _if_ she agrees, and I think that's long shot."

"Thank you."

"You good to bring her home tonight?"

"I'm good to bring her home any –"

"Shut up, Castle, she's not even conscious to appreciate it."

"Right. Sorry, it's a reflex."

"I'll show you a reflex."

Thank God, Ryan's phone chooses that moment to start blaring. Half the people in the waiting room turn and stare reproachfully. "Way to go," Esposito hisses at Ryan, jerking his chin at the "No Cell Phones" sign. Ryan, after glancing briefly at the screen, cringes and trots out the revolving door.

"It's gonna be another fucking body," Esposito says, shaking his head slowly and looking briefly exhausted. "On a Friday at 6. I can smell it."

"It's gonna be another fucking body," Lanie agrees, nodding sadly.

"It's another body," Ryan says as he walks back into the waiting room. "Well, two bodies. In a bedroom. And one of them is the D.A.'s wife."

Esposito whistles. "And then we lived at the precinct for a week."

"Castle -" Lanie starts.

"I'll hold down the Beckett fort. Just text me a picture of the bodies. I can't sleep knowing there are dead people out there and I haven't even gotten to see them."

"Creepy, Castle, creepy," Ryan says as the three head towards the door.

"You take good care of our girl," Lanie says, glaring threateningly.

"I got her," Castle says, touching his fingers to his head in a flagging salute.


	2. Chapter 2

Fifteen minutes later, Castle's sitting next to Beckett as her twitches grow more and more frequent. Lanie deserves more credit than he'd have given her; the doctors and nurses are all well aware that Beckett is NYPD injured in the line of duty, and she's somehow gotten a private recovery room as a result. He's secured a rather comfortable chair, which he's slid right up next to the bed. He was trying to be good and at least less creepy than usual and maybe read a magazine at a respectful distance, but that had lasted all of two minutes. Then Beckett had made a noise, a shuffled, whistling whoosh of air, and Castle had had to go check all the monitors, and then a minute later she'd shuddered a little, and then her eyelids moved, and soon Castle had decided to just stay nice and close so he could reassure himself of her breathing and perform CPR immediately should any post-anesthesia complications occur.

She has a rapidly darkening bruise on her left jawbone, and another on her right elbow and another on her left wrist, and for some reason he hasn't been able to stop staring at the broken capillaries. It's maybe even creepier of him than staring at her chest, he tells himself, and tries again to read a battered issue of The New Yorker with no success. He can't turn off his stupid writer's brain, which keeps running through scenarios where she tumbles down the stairs and the dumbass suspect who somehow can't manage staying on his feet while running away from the cops comes down on Beckett's neck instead of her leg, and worst of all (no, not worst of all, but still) wouldn't that just be the most ridiculous way for her to die.

Thank God, Beckett heads off his morbid thoughts by finally, briefly blinking her eyes open. "Fuck," she slurs quietly. "What the fuck."

"Are you thirsty? Are you okay? Can I get you anything? That was a hell of a spill you took, apparently, not that I would know. See if I ever blow you off for one of Alexis's parent-teacher nights again," Castle rambles. _Shut up shut up shut UP_, his brain tells his mouth.

"Mmmfh. Castle," she mumbles. Castle watches as her eyes gain more and more awareness, flicking open for longer periods of time.

"Water? Ginger Ale? Vodka tonic? I am the possessor of all things liquid and served in tiny plastic cups with straws."

"Got any tequila?" Beckett murmurs, and Castle's breath catches despite himself.

"I can probably rustle some up. But how about some Ginger Ale while you wait?"

She nods slowly, staring at him sleepily, a little vacantly, before sipping from the straw that he carefully guides into her mouth. Her eyes are cloudy from anesthesia and from the morphine the doctors said they gave her to keep her from having too painful an awakening.

"I really," she giggles, "I don't feel much of anything. Is my leg actually broken or did I dream it?"

"I think you'll feel it soon enough," Castle responds gently. "It's broken. You're going to be an absolute champion on crutches."

"I get to leave, though, right? I wouldn't let them put me under 'less they swore I could go home." Her brow furrows in consternation. "I really hate hospitals."

"Okay, so there's this catch."

"Noooooo," Beckett moans. "No catches. I hate catches. Just give me my freedom." She stretches out the "e" in freedom. Castle can't stop himself from smiling.

"You can leave, but you've got to come with me."

She looks at him sadly. "You have a Gina," she says, still slurring just slightly. "You can't say things like that anymore."

"Gina will understand. You need help for a little while, Beckett."

"Don't, either. I'll be good. Always am."

Castle wants to throw something, and he's not sure whether it's at her or himself. "Look, I think you'll be more comfortable at my place. Someone will always be around to help you out and we have things like, I don't know, an actual tub so you can bathe with that cast on, and I know your sublet doesn't have that. But if you really feel like you can't be there I will call Alexis and I'll tell her not to expect me home for a while and I will sleep on your couch or your floor until I am absolutely certain that you won't kill yourself trying to hop to bed while carrying a glass of water."

Beckett thrashes a little in the bed, petulant. "I don't like _any_ of this," she says. "Where is everybody else?"

"Body," Castle replies, "And no, I have no details so don't bother asking. They didn't want to leave you, though."

Beckett finally heaves a sad sigh. "I'll go to your home. But only for just tonight."

Castle's shoulders slump, and he tries to tell himself that it's in relief that she's agreed to go home with him and not in disappointment that being helped by him has somehow become her last, most desperate resort.


	3. Chapter 3

An hour later, Beckett is cleared to leave, provided she's under supervision. "Are you sure?" Castle asks the tired-looking man who is currently absent-mindedly toying with his stethoscope. It's not that he doesn't trust doctors, really; usually he thinks of himself as a very trusting person, but this man looks like he's been working longer shifts than Beckett."I mean…" Castle trails off and then shrugs, vaguely gesturing. She's clearly still off, all tousled hair and bleary eyes and slurry, run-together phrasing.

"She'll be fine, Mr. Castle," the doctor says. Castle is usually so good with names, but he can't remember this one for the life of him, his head still spinning with images of suspects crashing into Beckett in a dark stairwell. "Just keep an eye on her."

"Well," Castle says skeptically when the doctor leaves the room, "let's get you dressed and out of here."

"They cut my clothes off when I got here," she says, clearly still both drugged and affronted. "It's Ryan and Esposito's fault. They made me take an ambulance, even though I was fine. And the EMTs kept talking about my spleen, and then I got here and the doctors were just so excited about possibly ruptured organs and I was all strapped down and they just took scissors and snip snip even though my shirt was brand new and really cute too."

"I like you on morphine," Castle says affectionately. "You're different. You really just don't hold back."

"Find me some damn clothes, Castle."

"Yes, dear." He slips out of the room before she can respond.

The nurse manning the front desk is on the phone, looking angry and bored. Castle waits for five minutes before he resorts to drumming his fingers impatiently on the counter, but she neither speaks into the phone nor looks at him.

"Hey," Castle starts in his most charming voice, "do you have any scrubs for my –"

"Shhhhhhhhhhhhh," she hisses sharply, pointing at the phone.

"Right. Will you be –"

"Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh," she hisses again.

"Well, fine then," he says, and heads off in search of someone who won't snarl at him. Unfortunately, the hallways are creepily quiet, and the one nurse he does see looks distressed and has spatters of blood all over her shirt. Surely, Castle decides, they will sell something at this place somewhere that does not have to be taken from hissing or blood-spattered people.

On his way to the gift shop he texts Gina, feeling like a coward. _Beckett's hurt. Has to stay at Casa de Castle. Rain check on the sleepover tonight? _

His phone rings in response almost immediately. He cringes as he answers it.

"You have got to be shitting me," Gina says, without so much as a how-are-you or a I-hope-Beckett's-okay. "That woman _must_ have somewhere to stay that is not your apartment."

"Hey! She could be dying! You don't know." He tries desperately not to whine. He is a grown man. He does not need to whine.

"Oh, please, you would have called me sobbing and I would have had to sit there at the hospital, holding your hand, while you fretted and pined over your muse."

It is possible that Gina knows him a little too well, he thinks. "Would not," he denies, totally ineffectually.

Luckily, or not, Gina's not even listening to him. "I'm going to guess she sprained her wrist and you're worried she'll have to open a jar or cook her breakfast or shampoo her hair all by herself."

"She broke her leg!" He's definitely whining now, but at least it's a somewhat assertive whine. A manly whine. "She was _doing her job_ and some asshole plows her down a flight of stairs and she's just out from under anesthesia and on morphine and what, you think I'm going to let her stay with Lanie or Esposito where she'll be sleeping on a couch and crutching up and down sets of stairs while she's totally out of it?"

"Rick." Gina says, stopping his tirade, but then she is silent.

Patterson told him, after he broke up with Gina the first time, that his problem was that he spent a ridiculous amount of time thinking like a killer, thinking like a victim, thinking like a cop, thinking like himself, but he really never tried to think of things from his lovers' perspectives. So he takes a minute, and he steps back from the situation, and he comes to the realization that Lanie and Beckett had had immediately. He's having another woman sleep in his house. A beautiful woman. The woman to whom he is dedicating a series of books.

"I'm an ass, aren't I?" he sighs.

"Yes." Gina says.

"I probably should have thought a little."

"You would have done the same thing."

Castle cocks his head. "Probably," he replies, figuring that honesty is his best way out of this mess.

"Well, Rick, I'm at a loss. Should I say call me tomorrow? Call me when she's out of your house? Don't bother to call me? I'm just not really sure where to go with this."

"Look, Gina, can I please call you tomorrow? We can get some lunch, talk, you know."

She laughs. "Fine. Don't make me regret it." And then she hangs up.

"Well, that was awkward," Castle mutters to himself, reminding himself that he should really try to learn to think a little more often. He shakes off his uncharacteristic self-consciousness quickly, though, because Beckett is waiting for several floors above.

Ten minutes later, she's sitting up in the hospital bed, a small pile of clothes heaped in her lap, staring at him with a wrinkled nose. "How many millions of dollars do you have, and this is what you find?" she asks. Short navy sweat shorts, with "Bellevue" in big block letters across the ass, a tiny, spaghetti-strap tank top, this time with the "Bellevue" tastefully scrawled across the bottom, and an oversized hoodie, obviously with a block script advertising Bellevue across the chest.

"Well that's not fair," Castle says. "I didn't want to leave you for too long. Do you know how much of this hospital is used as a psychiatric facility? God only knows how quickly the crazies would find you."

"It never takes them very long," she says, looking at him meaningfully.

"Hey," he protests, but then, noting how she sways ever so slightly, changes gears. "Are you sleepy? Woozy? Can I help you slide into some completely tasteful and beautifully crafted apparel?"

"_Out_, Castle," she replies, pointing an arm at the door.

"Fine. But if your shirt is off and you feel yourself starting to black out, just call my name. Or throw something at the door. Or, you know, don't say anything at all and I can burst in here heroically and save you."

"Watch it, Castle, I have a…" she pauses, tilting her head. "I don't, actually. Ryan didn't leave my gun for me?"

"Believe it or not, Beckett, you are the only person in the NYPD, or actually in all of NY in general, who has ever voluntarily handed me a gun."

"Are you telling me there are people out there who have _involuntarily _handed you a gun?"

"This is neither the time nor the place," Castle says, in what he hopes is a firm yet playful voice. "Tomorrow, after we have eaten pints of ice cream and watched _Casablanca _and braided each other's hair and played guitar hero – this is what you do at Casa de Castle on a sick day or a snow day or really any day when work is unpalatable – I shall regale you with a tale of wild escapades and semi-illicitly-acquired weapons."

"I'm tingling with anticipation."

"You don't look it. Anyway, I'm pretty sure Ryan took your gun to keep it safe from both me and the other psychotics in the hospital." He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively. "But don't worry," he adds, lowering his voice several octaves, "I'll protect you."

Beckett just rolls her eyes, looking tired and pale, and he reminds himself that she really does need to get home and sleep, and now isn't really the time for witty repartee, and, God, he really talks a lot when he possibly should be busier making sure Beckett doesn't pass out. Aside from the guilt that he would definitely feel, Lanie _would _kill him, probably with an unnecessary degree of mess.

"Change your clothes," he says, softly. "I'll be right outside if you need me."

He sees her smiling at him, just a little, as he steps outside the room and slowly shuts the door.


	4. Chapter 4

On the elevator ride up to his apartment, Castle decides that while he really likes the drugged model of Beckett, while he might even worship and adore the drugged model of Beckett, he absolutely, indisputably cannot take the drugged model of Beckett on crutches. It is giving him an ulcer; he can feel it, right there in the pit of his stomach, an ulcer that he has managed to thwart despite two divorces and a lifetime of more partying than is strictly advisable, an ulcer that has finally reared its ugly head and gnaws insistently on his intestines every time Beckett moves. She's not bad on the crutches; he thinks she'd actually be quite handy on them, were she not quite so tired and quite so high on morphine, but in her current state she keeps swaying and weaving dangerously. This would usually be a time when he could sidle up to her, stand a little closer, but the damn metal abominations throw off his rhythm. He tried to maintain his usual proximity when they got out of the cab (well, fine, it was a limo, and Beckett _had _gone and mocked him, but he was not putting her in a taxi or even a car service where she would be all cramped up in the back, not when for practically pennies more they could have a nice black stretch Hummer where she could prop her leg up or even lie down if she felt like it), but his leg had gotten tangled up in the bottom of the crutch and they'd almost both fallen.

"I can't believe you made me come here in a limo," Beckett mumbles for the fifteenth or sixteenth time as the elevator reaches Castle's floor. She lurches a little to the left as they stop. Castle reminds himself to breathe deeply through his mouth. Or nose? He can't remember. He really hopes, yet again, that she doesn't fall.

"Did you ever think that maybe I get tired of slumming it, Beckett? I mean, you make me ride around in that ridiculous car of yours with the cramped seat and the lumpy upholstery and that stupid springy spring. Maybe I just needed a little bit of luxury." He maneuvers carefully behind her, stepping delicately over his clunky nemeses in what he hopes is a subtle move.

"I'm not going to fall over, Castle. Stop acting ridiculous."

"I'm just getting out of the kill zone," he says. "You come tumbling down on me and we land in a mess of limbs and metal, and not that that doesn't sound _incredibly_ sexy, but if it ends with me breaking _my_ leg then we're both screwed."

"Wow, Castle, I guess chivalry's not dead after all." She sounds almost like her usual self after a long case, a little tired and a little loopy, but she looks like a co-ed, her long, muscular legs stretching out of her very short shorts, her hoodie rumpled over her slumped torso. Well, a battered coed, he amends, looking at the clunky white cast enveloping her lower right leg, at the bruises on her jaw and wrist, still darkening.

"A Hummer limo, Beckett. I bring you home on a Friday evening in the City that Never Sleeps in a gleaming black stretch limo and you're talking to me about chivalry." He's not putting his heart into the banter like usual, instead focusing most of his energy on Beckett's slow, wobbly lurches towards his loft. He slides in front of her two steps out and deftly unlocks the door, pushing it open so she won't have to break her momentum.

"Martha? Little Castle?" Beckett questions.

"Martha's at Chet's, of course, and Little Castle is spending the weekend at her BFF Mindy's, although she might cut that short." He doesn't tell her about how Alexis had wanted to rush right to the hospital when he had texted her as he waited for Beckett to wake up. He'd almost let her, but there was nothing she could do and he wasn't sure of Beckett's post-anesthesia tolerance for two hovering Castles.

'Mmmm," Beckett murmurs, either in agreement or exhaustion, leaning on her crutches.

"Okay, to bed or to dinner with you."

"Bed, please."

Castle suddenly pauses in the middle of the room, feeling like the biggest kind of idiot. He'd spent so long criticizing Lanie's lack of stairs (obviously, he tells himself, his situation is far superior) and he'd tried so very hard to get her back to his apartment (where he'd be able to provide exceptional care for his incredibly special invalid), that he'd never thoroughly thought through getting her from his living room to the spare room upstairs. _I am very, very dumb today_, he thinks, and he can only partially forgive himself when he considers the reason for his thoughtlessness.

Beckett doesn't even question him as he stands there like a moron; she just heaves a sigh as she leans on her crutches, and he makes a snap decision. "Please don't kill me please don't kill me please don't kill me," he murmurs quietly as he walks over to her, and, bending down, places an arm below her knees and an arm at the bottom of her shoulder blades. She lets out a surprised squeak as he scoops her up and her crutches clatter to the floor.

"Richard Castle, put me down _right now_ or I will club you to death with my cast and leave your battered, bloody body here for Alexis to find in the morning so help me God." Her anger makes her sound surprisingly sober.

"It's just," Castle says, "your room is upstairs. And I would have let you crutch up but I think I'm getting an ulcer. And there's a TV up there. And a bathtub. And I can bring you food. You don't have to come back down until you're better. Not for weeks and weeks. I swear I will never carry you again," he babbles incoherently.

"What? Are you threatening to hold me hostage here for _weeks_? I'm sorry, I thought I was the one on painkillers." Despite her words, he can already feel the anger melting out of her body, her muscles tiredly relaxing in his arms, her rigid side melting into his chest.

He shifts slightly for the walk up the stairs, deciding to take his life into his own hands and ignore her threats, and it is then that he notices how, even through the thick fabric of the sweatshirt, her spine presses sharply into his arm, and how her weight is not quite the burden it should be, how she is far too easy to carry.

He'd noticed her change in look, the long, loose-fitting shirts, and he'd figured it had gone with the longer hairstyle, that she'd wanted to switch things up a little. Sure, maybe her jaw had been a bit more angular, but they hadn't seen each other in four months and he mostly thought that she'd been clenching it every time he was around. He'd never thought her change in wardrobe would be to hide a loss of weight, but Beckett, he reminds himself yet again, is not Gina, Gina who proudly flaunts every loss of every pound. Beckett doesn't like people to notice things.

He thinks back to the spring, to how he'd taken to picking up lunch almost every day or bringing her leftover pasta from the house and putting it in front of her in the afternoon, about how he'd always bring way too much extra food, something nutritious, something Alexis had made in one of her myriad health kicks, and she'd have to bring it home for dinner, about how he'd grown used to handing her bear claws in the morning, about how he'd squirreled away Nature's Valley peanut butter granola bars and dark chocolate M&Ms in the recesses of her desk because those were her favorite and he didn't want her to get hungry if he had somewhere else to be for an afternoon.

_Beckett is a grown woman who was and is perfectly capable of feeding herself_, he says to himself, except that he knows how caught up in her work she can get, he knows how compulsively, irrationally obsessed she can become, and nobody, not Ryan or Esposito or Lanie or even goddamn Demming, knew her like he did because nobody watched her like he did, because watching her was his job, and why couldn't he have thought of this before he just walked away for months and months?

"Are we just going to snuggle, Castle, or are we actually going somewhere?" asks Beckett, and he can't stop his heart from thumping so wildly in his chest that he's sure she can feel it, because here she is in his arms saying things that make him squirm and her hair is tickling his elbow and her pupils are hugely dilated, even if it is from morphine, and how many times has he thought of this exact moment but without the bruises and the cast.

"Are you saying you're not a snuggler, or are you saying you'd like me to take you somewhere, Beckett?" he asks, his voice cracking on her name like a prepubescent teenage boy. It is not fair that she falls down a flight of stairs and breaks her leg and he's still the one who's humiliated.

Beckett just stares at him, eyes huge and liquid and hazy, and even though she's way too skinny his knees tremble as he walks up the stairs. He knows how badly she needs to get to sleep, how tired she is, but he can't help walking slowly, stretching out the time that her head gently bumps against his chest and her back presses into his arms and her side expands and contracts against his stomach with every breath she takes.

x-x-x-x-x

Thanks to everyone who reviewed! I think it makes me write faster, and it definitely makes my heart pitter-patter with glee and joy to know that people are actually reading this.


	5. Chapter 5

Castle can't sleep. It's not an uncommon problem for him – he's a writer, after all, and too often he's lying in bed, mind drifting in a haze of semi-consciousness, when he's hit by a bolt of inspiration. Usually, he'll scurry to his laptop to write for two or three or four hours, and force of habit finds him there now, staring with unseeing eyes at a blank screen.

Beckett had been half asleep by the time he'd lain her on the bed, too out of it, he was sure, to notice how his mouth brushed against her hair when he murmured "goodnight" before carefully sliding her under the covers. She hadn't even twitched when he'd come back with her crutches, propping them against the nightstand, and he'd felt confident enough to pause in her room for a while, watching the rise and fall of her chest beneath that ridiculous sweater.

He needs to stuff her full of food before he allows her to leave his apartment, he thinks absentmindedly, his eyes starting to drift shut. He sees the scene clearly, Beckett propped appealingly on his couch, him puttering around the kitchen, cooking great big marbled slabs of steak and fish drenched in buttery sauce and huge bowls of pasta doused in some sort of full-fat cream concoction. Alexis suddenly appears in his mental image, and he wriggles into a more comfortable position in his office chair as his eyes slowly close to the image of the three of them sprawled around the living room swirling fatty, creamy spaghetti onto their forks.

Hoarse shouting from Beckett's room startles him awake, the raw, panicked noise echoing through the loft. He's known her for over two years and he's never heard this kind of sound from her and he hopes to God that he never hears it again. He throws himself out of his chair, still in a daze, and he trips over his own damn feet and smacks his elbow into the desk and almost goes crashing down onto the floor. He gets his feet under him and, holding his elbow and cursing softly, bolts down the hall, throwing himself through the cracked door to the spare room without a pause.

The room is dark, but the light from the hallway shines through the door and onto the bed, enough light for him to see Beckett twisted in the sheets, back arched, murmuring incoherently. He stands there for three seconds or maybe five hours, it's impossible to tell with her disjointed voice echoing through the room, before he finally unsticks his feet and propels himself to the side of the bed.

He drops to his knees and skims his hands over her arms, her shoulders, her ribs; he brushes his fingers through her hair, over her cheek, whispering all the while, "Kate, Kate, wake up, come on, Kate; Beckett, there's been a murder and there's bodies waiting; Beckett, wake up and tell me to get my hand off your stomach before you strangle me with my own intestines; Beckett, Kate, wake up."

Suddenly, she's quiet. Her eyes fly open and they are wild, huge and terrified and shining with tears. She flings herself into a sitting position and he rocks back onto his heels, only narrowly avoiding getting his nose broken by her forehead. Reaching down jerkily, she grabs the hem of her sweatshirt and violently pulls it off, flinging it to the floor. The small tank top covers too much and not enough of her; she is glowing with a sheen of sweat, her clavicles and shoulder bones jutting out, her chest heaving rapidly.

Castle's hands are still resting on the covers over her thigh, where they'd landed when she'd jerked upright, and suddenly he's not sure where to put himself or what to say, so he sits there awkwardly on his heels as Beckett takes these huge rasping gulps of air and swallows again and again and looks away, blinking.

"Beckett," he finally says, "if you wanted my attention all you really had to do was call me."

"Shoulda told me that sooner," she rasps, staring vacantly at the armoire on the opposite side of the room, head turned as far from him as she can, hair falling in a curtain over her face. "Thought a girl had to scream her head off just to get noticed 'round here."

He can't tell if she's crying or just extremely hoarse and he can't tell what she's thinking and he can't believe that they are sitting here engaging in ridiculously lame banter, even though he's the one who started it. He rocks forward, propelling himself onto the bed, sitting at her feet. Gently, he brushes her hair out of her face, behind her ear, and maybe because it's three in the morning his arm feels weighted with lead and he just can't bring himself to move his palm from its current location, a whisper away her cheek. She doesn't move away immediately, but instead of feeling encouraged he just feels more worried.

"You wanna talk about it?" he asks, leaning closer, wanting nothing more than to touch her. He boldly moves his index finger to rest lightly against her jaw. Her skin is covered in cold sweat.

"Hah," she breathes, just a puff of air.

He feels a sudden, horrible certainty, deep in his stomach, or else his very recently acquired ulcer is expanding. "How often? How often do you dream like this?"

Her eyes flick down to her lap. "It's worse," she says, dancing around his question but confirming what he already knew, "with the pain meds, I think. More vivid. I don't come out of it as fast."

He is going to have to break up with Gina, he thinks randomly; he is going to have to break up with Gina because he will never, ever let Beckett spend a night alone again. The thought of her waking up frightened and alone, waking up fucking screaming and shaking in her small, dark sublet, makes him want to vomit all over his 3000-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets. He won't be able to go on any more book tours, obviously, or go away for long stretches of time, unless, he suddenly considers, unless he just gets Beckett to quit her job and then they wouldn't have to worry about conflicting obligations. Maybe if he keeps her on morphine, a whole lot of morphine, horse-sized doses of morphine, he could manage to keep her in his apartment forever, but didn't she just say the morphine made the nightmares worse?

"It's not a big deal, Castle," she says, as if she can read his thoughts, and suddenly he is livid, almost outside himself with anger. He removes his hand from her jaw with clipped precision.

"It isn't? Really? You know, you're absolutely right. It's fine you feel like you haven't eaten a solid meal in months. It's fine you wake up screaming your head off in the middle of the night. It's fine that you could sprint a marathon in stilettos but suddenly you can't sidestep a man falling down the stairs. You gonna tell me that's not related? You gonna tell me you wouldn't have been faster on your feet today if you'd been sleeping and eating?"

He can feel his body vibrating, his breath coming almost as quickly as hers, and it makes him feel absurd and even more enraged, because he does not get angry - that might be what he likes most about himself, the fact that he can laugh about having no father and Meredith cheating on him and his marriage with Gina dissolving into a miserable, sexless mire. He can't remember ever being this angry with Alexis, but then again, he thinks, Alexis has never been as goddamn irresponsible as Beckett is being right now.

Beckett just sits there, staring down at her hands, so he stares at them too, and then they both startle a bit when a splash of water lands on her thumb, and when he looks at her face he sees tears silently dripping off her cheeks, and damn it, he had every right to be furious and she had to go and ruin it by crying. The anger drains out of him in one great rush. He leans forward and then forward some more, but none of it is close enough until finally their foreheads are touching as they sit there, both slumped and exhausted on the bed. Like her jaw, her forehead is damp with sweat.

"I won't say I'm sorry," he rumbles, the words coming from deep in his chest. "I'm not sorry for being angry, because I can't understand what's going on with you and it's terrifying me, Beckett."

She doesn't move her head away from his, and, feeling bold, he reaches out a hand and gently rests it on her bare forearm.

"You're trying to sneak a cuddle," she whispers, her voice quiet and full of tears but at least there's a hint of a smile in it, now. "I can tell."

He won't press it, because this is a different kind of Beckett than he's ever seen, a kind that cries when he presses. "Well, Beckett, I come into your room and you tear your shirt off and sit there in bed, barely dressed, and what do you expect me to do?" He can feel her breath on his nose and mouth. It makes his chest constrict.

Her eyes drift shut and she's silent and still for a long time. Her breathing starts to even out, her forehead gets less clammy, her arm becomes less tense. It's oddly, heart-wrenchingly intimate, more intimate than most of the sex he's had, because this is Beckett, barely clothed, emotionally vulnerable, sitting in bed with him. His entire body is humming from their physical contact.

Finally, she speaks, words coming out in a gravelly whisper. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to wake you. I promise not terrify you again."

"You're trying to make me go away."

"I am making you go away," she says, pulling her forehead away from his. They are still close, centimeters apart, but he profoundly feels the loss of contact. Underneath his palm, she tenses her arm, ready to completely disentangle herself.

Castle knows he has exactly one chance – Beckett might not be able to physically eviscerate him with her usual ease, but he's sure that even in her current state she's perfect capable of emotionally bludgeoning him. "I'm going to be honest here. Between the call that you were in the hospital and this recent excitement, you've scared the living shit out of me twice today, and I've been halfway to a panic attack a dozen other times. I know it's been a worse day for you, but I'm getting old, Beckett. Really old. I'm at the brink of a heart attack, I can feel it."

"So borrow one of Alexis' stuffed animals. Or go do… something else… to calm yourself down." She hasn't made eye contact with him since he came into the room. _Do not engage_, Castle tells himself; as soon as she has him making sex jokes it's over.

"Alexis donated them all to charities," he says, blinking innocently, pointedly ignoring her other suggestion, "in a fit of adulthood. It was awful to see, sad little bunny ears poking out of Goodwill-bound trash bags. I'm just not sure there's more than one solution to my problem."

"Castle," she hisses at him, finally meeting his eyes. Her face is still frighteningly pale. "You are _in a relationship_. How do you think Gina would feel knowing you _spent the night with me_?"

He's ready for this, at least. "Not a problem!" he says, chipper, suddenly intensely grateful that he left the spare room a mess of blankets and pillows and that five years ago he'd sprung for the king-size bed. Moving up to the headboard, Castle takes five pillows and constructs a barrier down the middle of the bed. He reaches down and pulls a crumpled throw from the floor.

"See," he says, flopping out and stretching down on his side before peering at her over a pillow, "it's a completely enforced blockade. Fort Knox. I sleep over the covers with my little throw blanket friend here; you sleep under the covers over there; we stay divided by the Great Wall of Pillow; I don't die early from a heart attack; you don't have to listen to my whining."

Beckett, clearly exhausted, finally collapses back from her sitting position. "Nice plan, Wile E. Coyote. I'd feel better about it if I had my gun."

Castle's still peering at her over a pillow. "I have a fireplace poker that's pretty sturdy. Or I could go break a beer bottle for you to keep on the nightstand, or a wine bottle, you know, whatever's best for shanking. Oh, oh, or a copy of _Storm's Last Stand, _my longest novel and yet somehow one of my biggest failures – but I really think it would be hugely useful for bludgeoning someone."

"Wow, Castle," she murmurs, her eyes closing, "You must be pretty desperate to stay if you're offering me weapons with which to shank and bludgeon you."

"I've always thought that blatant, pathetic desperation was one of my more endearing qualities," Castle responds softly.

Beckett's eyes keep closing in exhaustion and then flicking open nervously. Her face is still white, except for that vivid bruise, and her hair is still damp from sweat. Castle's suddenly not sure how much longer he can keep himself from climbing over the pillows and wrapping her in his arms and trying to rock her to sleep, which of course, gun or no, would lead to his death, so he tries and does the next best thing. "So the time that I may have acquired a handgun on the streets of New York from someone who was slightly less-than-voluntary, I was doing research for _Storm Rising_." He keeps his voice low, a rumble in his chest, falling into steady, rhythmic syllables, and as he tells his story her eyes gradually close, her breathing slows, and the tension melts out of her body.

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Thanks again to everyone who's reviewed!


	6. Chapter 6

"Castle. Castle. Castle!"

He wakes up from an already-fuzzy dream in which Beckett was saying his name in a very, very different way. He can't quite figure what's going on.

"God. This can't really be what waking up with you is really like. Where am I? What time is it?"

"Get your damn foot off my leg."

Daylight is drizzling through the half-open blinds, bathing his bedmate in what should be a very appealing light. Unfortunately, he sees through one half-open eye, she's turned to face him and is busy glaring, the bruise on her jaw making her look a little too fierce for whatever early hour it is.

His back hurts, and he can't understand why until he realizes that while he was sleeping, his traitorous leg weaseled its way out from under the throw and over the impenetrable Great Wall of Pillow, all the way to Beckett's bare calf, the one not encased in a cast, which she must have kicked out of the covers at some point in the night. The result is that he's twisted his body into a pretzel, his face is half smashed into his pillow, his back feels like it has about five herniated disks, and Beckett looks like she's ready to bludgeon him with one of the weapons he's glad he never brought her the night before.

He takes a brief second and absolves his sleeping foot – her calf is magnificent, muscular and smooth and warm. Then he stretches, twitches, and carefully rearranges himself back on his side of the bed. "I'm sorry my foot violated your calf. Totally of its own accord, I might add."

"You are sneaky and insincere," Beckett says, still glaring.

"More morphine?" Castle asks helpfully. He worships all varieties and moods of Beckett, but right now, waking up with her in the same bed in a hazy golden light, he wishes she were a little more slurry, a little more pliable – in short, a little more high on pain meds.

"You are not going to drug me into submission, Castle," she says, her eyes boring holes into his skull.

"How are you inside my head?" he moans.

"It's a pretty low-key place to be at seven am," Beckett retorts.

"Seven am, Beckett. On a Saturday, that is the witching hour in this house. You didn't know, and your leg was being ferociously assaulted, so I'll forgive you this time, but now you're aware. Sleep time."

"That's okay," Beckett says, sitting up in bed. The comforter that she'd had pulled up around her neck drops to her waist. Castle tries, a little desperately, not to stare at her chest_. A strappy tank top was a terrible idea,_ he tells himself, _a terrible, wonderful idea._ "You sleep in. I need to get to work, catch up on what I missed last night."

"Did you hit your head? Are you _delusional_?" Castle lies there, frozen with indecision. Should he lunge across the bed and take her crutches? Call Lanie and have her yell into the phone? Find his pair of fuzzy handcuffs and latch her to the headboard? What's the worst she could do to him if he cuffed her to the bed? _Oh my God_, he realizes, _this is going to end with one of us dead._

As he's staring at her, immobile and dumbfounded, she swings her legs off the bed and suddenly flinches violently, sucking in a sharp breath of air. Castle winces in sympathy.

"What is it? Leg? Ribs? What can I do? I don't think they actually gave me morphine but there's Demerol and Codeine and, I don't know, some other stuff over there. Also I have ice. And IcyHot. And chocolate, even if it is seven in the morning." He mentally rummages through his house, trying to think of other items with curative powers.

"Shhh, Castle," she breathes out. He can only see the side of her face from where he's lying, but he can tell her eyes are closed.

"Please let me help you," he whispers. He can't get quite enough air when she looks like this, her face almost as pale as it was the night before, her jaw clenched in pain.

"Ouch," she finally says, opening her eyes and taking a deep breath.

Castle propels himself over the wall of pillow, flops onto his back, and wriggles over until he's lying with his head at her knee, staring up into her ashen face.

"You are completely absurd," Beckett murmurs, smiling a tiny smile.

"You, Detective Beckett, are yet again making my heart palpitate, and not in the sexy way. Which is ironic, considering we've just spent the night together."

She blinks, sighs, looks away. "I'm just a little sore."

"Well, more than a little sore. But you're not just that, anyway," Castle corrects gently. He takes a deep breath. "Why didn't you tell me? I would have… I don't know. I would have done something."

"Right." She rolls her eyes. "Over coffee and dead bodies? Or before, during the summer? 'Castle, I know we haven't talked in months, but I'm having horrible nightmares and maybe you could ditch the ex-ex and come give me a snuggle?'"

"I would have, you know. I would have in a heartbeat."

She looks at him for a long time before she talks, turning to stare straight ahead at the far window, speaking in a low monotone. "I was at the station. I was cuffed, I don't know why, over one of those exposed pipes. My feet couldn't quite touch the floor, so I was hanging. Maybe I'd been there for a while - my arms hurt. I was shivering because there was this sticky liquid all over me. You were there. So were the Captain and Ryan and Esposito. The Captain told me I disgusted him, and then he and Ryan and Esposito walked away. You stayed. You were staring at me like you hated me. I kept asking you what was wrong, asking you to let me down, but you just stared. And then my mom walked up, out of nowhere. I was so happy to see her. But when I looked in her eyes she was so _angry_, angry like I'd never seen her. She told me I failed her, and then she pulled a box of matches from her pocket."

"Jesus Christ, Kate."

Beckett continues in an unbroken monotone. "I started crying and asked her what I had done. She just shook her head and lit the match. She flicked it onto my chest. I started burning immediately – I must have been covered in kerosene. I screamed. You watched for a minute and then you walked away. My mom stood there and laughed while I burned. I need to use the bathroom now. Will you get my crutches?"

Castle lies there, paralyzed, certain he will never sleep or eat or possibly even breathe normally again. Finally, he stumbles off the bed and grabs the crutches with unfeeling fingers.

"Beckett –" he begins, choking on his voice.

She shrugs a little and slowly, stiffly starts to stand. "I had nightmares after my mom died. It's not going to turn me into a raging sociopath or an alcoholic or a suicide risk."

"I know a really good therapist," he begins, still feeling like he's choking, like he's speaking for the first time in days.

"No," she says before he can finish. "I didn't tell you so you could try and fix me."

She's balanced cautiously on one leg, and he walks up to her until he's almost touching her and gradually slides her crutches under her arms, one at a time. His fingers brush against her ribs, against her bare arms. He leaves his hands against her for several heartbeats too long and tells himself it's just to make sure she's steady on her feet. "I don't want to _fix_ you, Beckett. I want you to be happy."

Her eyes flick over his face. "I know," she finally says. And then she smiles a little, and leans in until her lips are maybe an inch from his and he can feel the heat of her breath on his mouth. "Do you know what would make me really, really, really happy?"

He wants to tell her to stop, that this isn't the time, that nobody should ever have dreams like that and laugh it off the next morning, that nobody should be flinging themselves around talking about going to work after getting beat up like she did, that he will do anything to make everything better for her, but she still looks tired and sad and her mouth is so close to his, so he just murmurs, "What?"

"A long, hot, steamy bubble bath. And a plastic bag for my cast. And some Advil." She says the first part so huskily that all hope of him thinking with his brain is forever lost.

"I don't know if I can condone a bath, Beckett," he whispers, allowing his lips to creep a hair towards hers, "unless you have appropriate supervision. You're too sore to move much, and you're on crutches. I think you've really got to have someone to lift your naked –"

His eyes were so fixated on her face that he didn't even notice her shift a crutch until she rapped him, hard, in the leg with it. "Ouch!" he says, stumbling back a step, "That was metal on my shin! Do you have any idea how much that hurt?" She lifts an eyebrow. "Right. You probably do."

"That was for luring me into your house yesterday, and for calling me undernourished and neurotic and slow on my feet last night, and for forcing me to tell you all my secrets this morning, and then for shamelessly flirting with me."

"_You _started shamelessly flirting with _me_!"

"Mmm. That's your defense, Castle?"

"You just assaulted me and it was quite nearly unprovoked. You owe me."

"I'm terrified." His only cue that she's still hurting and shaken and not quite her normal self is how quickly she acquiesces. Well, semi-acquiesces.

"You have to stay with me until you're off crutches."

"_What?_"

"Okay, for a month." She stares at him. "A week." She keeps staring. "Okay, okay, tonight, you have to at least stay tonight. God, your stare is like ice."

She's still staring, doubtfully, which is his cue to ramble. "I promise there will be no foreign feet on your calf, or any of your other body parts, when you wake up. I will encase my feet in socks and then I will tie them to each other or to a bedpost so they cannot find their way to you in the middle of the night. I will construct an even more epic barrier than the Great Wall of Pillow, a foot barrier of epic –"

"You said that already. One more night, Castle, and don't think for one second that we will be sharing a bed."

"Did you like it too much? Did it titillate you?"

She smiles and rolls her eyes. "I already told you what would titillate me, and for some reason I still don't hear running water."

"You did not say titillate. I would most assuredly know if you had said the word titillate."

"Writers and their words," Beckett sighs. She's leaning more heavily on the crutches than she was a minute ago, which is his cue to notice that, yet again, he's standing around talking with her like he's some kind of moron who can't remember she's injured.

"How about I go fulfill your bath-time wish list – I can even steal some of Alexis' smelly relaxy salts that I'm sure are good for bruised ribs, too – and you can clunk yourself over to the bathroom. Unless you need a ride on the Castle Express?" He makes a scooping motion with his arms.

"I will kill you."

"Right. Anyway, as you are reclining in the lap of tub luxury I will cook you a delicious breakfast of eggs and pancakes and hash browns and oh so much bacon."

"I'm not really hung—"

"I know you didn't eat dinner yesterday. Did you eat lunch?"

"Christ, Castle, I don't remem—"

"If you don't feel like chewing you can just swallow it whole, like a snake eating a rabbit." He makes an exaggerated gulp.

"That is disgusting."

"I am a disgusting man, Detective Beckett," he says, walking towards the bathroom. He glances back at her when he reaches the doorway. She's slowly following him, doggedly crutching forward, and she's too tired and too thin and so stiff, but there's something different about her eyes, a little bit of a smile in them that he hasn't seen in a long, long time.

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Thanks again to everyone for the reviews! I check them on my iPhone and then wind up grinning like a little bit of an idiot at weird times, like when I'm standing in line for coffee at Panera or eating an empanada at a street festival or waiting with a great gaggle of people to go see _The Social Network_.


	7. Chapter 7

The doorbell rings yet again, and Castle feels his heart plummet. _This is going to be awkward_, he thinks as he grudgingly lifts himself off the couch, surveying the otherwise happy scene in his living room.

The downward spiral had started an hour earlier – no, really, it had started before then, six hours ago, when Beckett was taking a bath and he was cooking eggs. He decided to text Gina, because he really wasn't ready for any conversation that early in the morning after he'd spent a (perfectly innocent) night in bed with another woman. _Come over for lunch at 1? I will supply delicious dumplings from Dim Sum Go Go_.

She responded quickly, thankfully with a text and not a phone call. _Why are you awake right now? And don't you want to go out for lunch somewhere?_

He recognized her second question for what it was – a kind of admission that she would rather not be at his loft with him and Beckett, which, when he really considered it, was not an appealing situation. But what if Beckett got thirsty, or needed something, and nobody was around, and she was so sore anyway, and what if she fell or was in pain and he was in some restaurant eating risotto with Gina? No, Richard Castle might have been lacking in some areas, but he was socially adept, and he could handle what a lesser man might think of as a horrifyingly awkward situation. He responded breezily. _Trouble sleeping. And no, lunch here will fun – casual, and it's turning into a sweatpants kind of day anyway._

The last part was true, at least – the soft sunlight was rapidly being replaced by a rather ominous bank of storm clouds. Luckily, if inexplicably, Gina acquiesced without protesting. _You are so lucky I've been craving Chinese lately. I'll see you at 1. _

By the time he made his way upstairs with a tray of food, Beckett was back in her Bellevue sweats, sitting stiffly on the bed, hair still soaked, phone pressed against her ear. He had no idea how she'd managed changing and navigating the tub when she was moving so badly, but he wasn't about to risk his life and ask. "No, Dad, it's really not that bad. I feel fine," she said into the phone.

"Do not lie to your father!" he whispered at her, glaring. She waved an arm, shushing him.

"Really, Dad, I would need to check with Castle, it's his place."

"You're welcome here any time, Sir," Castle boomed in his best stage voice. Beckett looked like she wanted to lunge across the bed and strangle him.

"Okay, Dad, I know, I heard him too. Lunch today is fine."

Castle shifted uncomfortably as she rattled off his address, but he quickly realized what a fortuitous turn this was. Beckett would be with her father while he and Gina could have an uninterrupted conversation (about what, he really had no idea, but he figured he'd work through that later or just make it up as he went along – it'd worked for him with his first novel and for plenty of other uncomfortable situations with members of the opposite sex).

As he pondered, he was started by a small, black object flying directly at his face. He jumped and barely caught Beckett's phone before it hit him in the nose.

"Thanks for that, Castle," she said, glaring at him.

"I felt some compulsion toward fatherly solidarity. Obviously he wants to see you, Beckett."

She deflated a little. "I just hate to worry him. If you'd seen him when I took this job…" she trailed off, shaking her head. "I always tell him he's silly to worry."

"Well of course he's not," Castle said, chastising, as he set the tray in front of her on the bed. "Now eat your breakfast."

By the time she finished her food, she'd lost her healthy glow from her bath and had gone back to looking pale and exhausted. Before he coerced her into going back to sleep for a while (he considered it only slightly underhanded to mention how unhappy her dad would be upon seeing her look this particular extent of bedraggled), he'd gotten her to give him permission to contact Lanie.

He called the M.D. as he was certain Beckett was sleeping comfortably. "Can you use your spare key, bust into Beckett's, and bring her some clothing?" he asked by way of greeting.

"Why, Castle? Afraid if you leave her unguarded she'll escape your lair?"

"Well, that, and I'm not sure I'd be getting permission to go through her underwear drawer."

"I'll stop by on my lunch break. I've got to deal with Mrs. Albrecht before I go anywhere."

"Oh, oh, the D.A.'s wife! How is she? I mean, other than bullet-riddled."

"That's all I've got for you right now, Castle. I'll bring the clothes. You keep on taking care of her."

"I'm trying, Lanie, I really am," he said before he hung up the phone.

After that, he spent a quiet morning lounging in his office, absentmindedly tapping out some Nikki Heat (well, okay, he spent half an hour writing and two hours researching nightmare cures, remedies for bruised ribs, the best way to ice broken legs that were encased in casts, and the most efficient method of sneaking calories into seemingly healthy meals) until 11:30, when the creaking of the front door alerted him to the presence of intruders.

"Darling, are you home?" Martha called. He hurtled down the stairs, finger to his lips.

"Beckett's sleeping," he said in a low voice before he looked them over. "Holy swamp creature. What are you two doing?" They were both soaked, dripping onto the hardwood.

"It only just started coming down this badly. I had to hear from my granddaughter that Detective Beckett was injured and staying here. We decided to come over for lunch, make sure she was feeling okay, make sure she hadn't killed you yet, the usual."

"Grandma made me," Alexis said, blinking innocently.

"Well come change, for the love of all things holy. You lucked out, it's Dim Sum Go Go day."

"Oh, Richard, I love you dearly, but I will never share their moo shu pork with you again," Martha said.

"I will get you your very own order, Mother, and I am very sorry that I was extra hungry just that one time."

Fifteen minutes later, a much drier Alexis and Martha were making their way down the stairs when the doorbell rang. Alexis cocked her head quizzically at her father. "That'll be Lanie. Or Beckett's dad," he said, but when he opened the door a slightly damp Ryan and Esposito were standing there, looking sheepish.

"Hey, Castle," Ryan began. Martha appeared at Castle' shoulder and started ushering the pair in before he could even respond.

"We were in the area," Ryan continued.

"Sort of," Esposito added.

"And we were going to call, but then we thought we'd just drop by, check in…"

"See how Beckett's doing," Esposito said with a shrug.

"You were worried," Alexis said with a smile. "You have to stay for Chinese takeout; it's awful outside and lunchtime anyway."

"Oh, no, we just wanted to stop by," Ryan started, but then Martha had a hand on each of their shoulders and was pushing them toward the couch.

"Don't be ridiculous, darling. Chinese food doesn't taste as good when there are fewer than five people eating it, and you wouldn't want to deprive me of a spectacular lunch experience, would you?"

"No, ma'am," Esposito responded, obediently sitting on the couch.

Lanie arrived fifteen minutes later with a duffle bag full of clothes, and Jim Beckett knocked on the door almost immediately after that. "I'll just go see how Kate's doing, Sir," Castle said, hoisting Beckett's duffle on his shoulder after the obligatory introduction.

He could hear the older man questioning Ryan and Esposito as he bounded up the stairs. "So, my daughter was characteristically unclear with me. Can you explain to me how she broke her leg?"

Beckett was sleeping soundly when he entered the guest room, her mouth slightly open, her face less pale. It was excessively difficult for him to convince himself to wake her, but finally, he walked up to the bed, put his mouth next to her ear, and whispered, "Beckett. Your adoring public is anxiously awaiting your descent."

She opened her eyes and shifted slightly to look into his face. Their noses were almost brushing.

"I have an adoring public?" she murmured sleepily.

"You surely do. Your dad is downstairs, and so are Martha and Alexis and Lanie and Ryan and Esposito."

She blinked and shifted her head back. "They're all here now? What time is it? Why didn't you wake me earlier?"

"A little after twelve, and we are all perfectly capable of entertaining ourselves." He heard the doorbell echo faintly. "That'd be Dim Sum Go Go. I kept having to call and order more food. I'm pretty sure that Mr. Yao was swearing at me in Chinese after I changed the order for the fourth time."

"You're lucky I love their egg noodles," she groaned, carefully adjusting herself into a sitting position.

"I ordered four cartons of them. I have the clothes Lanie got for you, if you want to change. Not that you're not excessively attractive in your Bellevue sweats," he said, leering.

Beckett peered wistfully at the duffle still slung over his shoulder. "Real clothes? Jeans?"

He poured the contents of the duffle on the bed and helped her root through it. "It's all sweats," she moaned. "Lanie is _dead _to me."

"Well maybe if your legs weren't so damn skinny I would have found some jeans that would've fit over your cast," Lanie said from the doorway.

"Wow. That's uncanny," Castle muttered.

"I came up to see if you needed help changing. Castle, stop hovering over the poor woman, she's not going anywhere."

Banished, Castle went downstairs to an array of white cartons spread over the coffee table. His guests were in various states of repose on the couch and chairs. "Don't worry, Dad," Alexis said cheerily from her position sprawled across the floor. "I found your wallet and gave a big tip."

Castle smiled, curled up next to his daughter, and started eating. Beckett appeared minutes later and made her way steadily down the stairs, flanked by Lanie and her somewhat distressed father, who had dashed upstairs the instant he'd heard the thump of crutches echo through the loft.

Castle was just settling back down after standing to make sure Beckett didn't trip and break her neck on her way to the couch (her two escorts both seemed hyper-aware of her balance, but he still couldn't stop the anxious flutter in his chest when she clunked forward) when the doorbell rang.

_Yes, this is definitely awkward. Maybe I should have warned people that Gina was on her way_, he thinks to himself as she steps into the loft and the room pauses in surprised silence. Beckett's the first one to turn away, leaning over to mention something to her father, who seems to shrug off the atmosphere of discomfiture quickly. Lanie is staring at Castle, shaking her head oh-so-slowly at him. His mother, his daughter, Ryan, and Esposito are looking at him with various levels of confusion mixed with disgust.

"I didn't realize this was a lunch party, Rick," Gina hisses through gritted teeth, still standing just inside the doorway.

"It snuck up on me a little," he murmurs.

Gina is staring at him and the scene in the living room with disbelief. "How are you this goddamn stupid?" she hisses.

"How about we eat in private?" he asks, because the one thing he is suddenly sure of is that asking Gina to sit down with everyone would be disastrous. He doesn't wait for her response or for anyone to speak; he just darts to the table, grabs a carton of dumplings and some orange chicken and a couple pairs of chopsticks, and then quickly leads Gina to his office, where he flips on the lights and puts the food on the desk.

"I'm sorry," he says as he sits down.

Gina sits down across from him, clutching a pair of chopsticks and looking seriously annoyed. "You should be. Do you so look guilty because you're practically having a party at what I thought would be a private lunch, or did you sleep with her?"

"God, Gina, I –" he pauses, tripping over his words, suddenly realizing that a denial would not be entirely truthful.

She puts down her chopsticks and stares at him. "Jesus Christ, Rick, I was kidding."

"I –"

"The woman just got out of the hospital! You're the one who said she was hopped up on morphine –"

"Hey! I didn't –"

"And I honestly hoped you would at least do me the common courtesy of breaking up with me instead of _cheating_. Good Lord, Rick, I know you're infatuated with her, but I thought I knew you better than _that_."

"I didn't have sex with her!" he snaps, and then softens as he looks at her face, at her eyes shining with anger and tears, at her flushed cheeks. "I swear, Gina."

She regards him critically. "Then what the hell is with the sudden stutter?"

"I might have slept in the same bed with her."

"Are you serious?"

"And I carried her up the stairs. And I flirted a little. Oh and when I woke up my foot was on her calf. And our faces were kind of close a couple times. And once our foreheads touched. But that was all." The words spill out of him in one great rush, like verbal vomit.

Gina's silent for a while, leaning back in her chair and looking at him appraisingly, before she speaks, a little too calmly. "I'm not stupid, you know. Of course I knew you were a little obsessed with her I agreed to go to the Hamptons with you in the first place, but I figured what the hell, if it'd get you writing again I'd do just about anything. And when we were there you were so sweet, and it almost like we were before we killed it all by getting married, except the sex was even _better_."

"It was," Castle says, eyes crinkling with a sad smile.

"So now I'm going around in circles, wondering how I could have overlooked how stupidly, ridiculously smitten you are with that woman, but I might have to forgive myself a little, because I think that sometime over the summer, you started overlooking it, too."

"I'm not –"

"Please, Rick. You were a big enough asshole to start dating me when you were in love with somebody else, and then you were a big enough asshole to not go ahead and fall out of love with her even after we'd been dating for _months_, so the least you can do is suck it up and be honest now."

"I just – I don't know, Gina. I'm - I don't not love you," he says sadly, trying to be truthful, but he hears how ridiculous and patronizing the words sound the second they leave his mouth. "For the record, that sounded less awful in my head."

She tilts her head, staring at him for a minute, her cheeks still flushed, her jaw still clenched. "It's been fun, Rick," is all she says when she finally speaks.

"Gina…" He wishes she would just scream at him or hit him or at least call him some truly awful names. "Want to slap me?"

"Get your own catharsis. I have a cardboard standee of you in the basement that I'll take my frustrations out on."

"I really didn't mean for this to happen," he says, feeling like the worst kind of scumbag.

"Oh, Rick, sweetie. Get your damn head out of your ass," she says as she turns and walks out of the office.

He stays sitting in his chair. Through the door, he can hear the muffled sound of Gina saying goodbye a little too breezily to the group – "I have a meeting, I was just stopping in to say hello."

He buries his head in his hands, feeling emotionally gutted. He should get up, he thinks, but he can't face Beckett and her dad, he can't face Lanie or Ryan or Esposito, he can't even face his own family right now. He doesn't know how long he sits in his office, cupping his forehead in his palms and listening to the talking and laughter from the living room, but eventually he hears the tapping of shoes on hardwood, the creak of the door, the sound of people saying goodbye. He stays sitting in the office, exhausted, unmoving. Thunder cracks outside, and he thinks, gratefully, that at least the weather matches his dismal mood.

Some time later, he hears a light rapping on the door. "Come in," he calls, head still cradled in his hands.

"Oh, Dad," Alexis says, and he peers between his fingers to see her shaking her head with a sad smile, "What on earth happened?"

"Gina and I broke up," he says, because of everything that's making him feel like he's been plowed over by a bus, that is the easiest to vocalize.

Alexis wrinkles her forehead in sympathy, walks over, and wraps her arms around his slumped shoulders. She's quiet for a long time, and he's thankful, yet again, that is daughter is somehow not only incredibly brilliant but also instinctually compassionate.

"Doctor Parish and Detectives Esposito and Ryan and Mr. Beckett all left a little bit ago," she says when he finally lifts his head from his hands. "They all told me to say thanks for lunch. Grandma's out there entertaining Detective Beckett right now, so you should probably be a little frightened."

"Thanks for holding down the fort, pumpkin."

"Detective Beckett seemed not herself," she mentions, a little too casually, "after Gina came. Apart from being tired and bruised, I mean."

He blinks, shakes his head, decides not to respond directly. "I'm going to try and have her stay here until she gets on her feet, so to speak," he says. "You have you use your considerable charms to help convince her. You're much more adorable than me."

"I'm not sure Detective Beckett thinks so," Alexis says quietly, but he's not really paying attention.

"She's been having pretty bad nightmares. Last night…" he breaks off, sighing, still not able to think about it rationally. "I don't want you to be scared or worried."

"Of course I'm worried, Dad. I'm worried about both of you. She's been sitting in the living room looking like she's about to have a physical and mental breakdown, and by the way I think everyone in that room who's surname isn't Beckett was pretty actively plotting your murder, including your own mother, and you're sitting in here looking more upset than when you broke up with Gina the first time, and that was a divorce."

"It's not just the breakup, pumpkin."

She sighs and rolls her eyes at him, reminding him of a somewhat kinder version of Beckett in her exasperated mood. "I know, Dad. Now will you please stop sitting in here, alone, with your head in your hands? I didn't say earlier because I wasn't sure we had enough, but I'm pretty sure there's some Ben & Jerry's Karamel Sutra in the freezer, and if anything is a cure-all for your myriad woes, it's Karamel Sutra."

He starts to protest, but his daughter firmly grabs his hand and tugs him up, pulling him toward the living room, toward Beckett.

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Wow, so that was longer than I'd planned. Hopefully it was not too oddly confusing, even with half of it being a mini flashback. Thanks again to everyone who's reviewed - you're still making me smile, and I get all hyped on the positivity and then I write well into the night rather than, say, working or sleeping or generally doing productive things.


	8. Chapter 8

"No, no, a thousand times no, Castle."

"See, your voice is saying no, but I see a maybe in your eyes."

"Out," she says, pointing at the door with a crutch. There's not really a maybe in her eyes – she looks very, very serious.

Castle pauses next to the bed in the guestroom, waiting to see if she'll relent, but her jaw is clenched. He knows if he pushes his luck she won't agree to stay with him after tonight. "What if –"

He must look stupidly pathetic, because her voice isn't as sharp when she cuts him off. "Castle, I know you're trying to help, I do. I'm even willing to acknowledge that your primary purpose in suggesting that we share a bed is, astoundingly, not sex. But you just broke up with the woman you've been seeing for months. Your daughter is here and I don't want her getting the wrong idea. And I am perfectly used to sleeping alone."

He sighs, stares at her for several seconds, and finally walks out of the room oh-so-slowly, halting for a ludicrous amount of time at the door, giving her a chance to change her mind.

"'Night, Castle," she says, softly, as he's standing there in the doorway.

"'Till tomorrow, Beckett," he responds, finally leaving the room.

As he wanders aimlessly toward his office, he thinks that it was completely insane for him to assume that, in any situation short of a coma (or being half asleep and traumatized after a hideous nightmare), she would allow him to share a bed with her. But she had been so nice, ever since earlier that afternoon when Alexis had led him out of his office and towards the kitchen, announcing to his mother and Beckett, "Dad and Gina broke up. We're going to eat ice cream now. Everyone has to have some." Beckett had allowed them to feed her Ben & Jerry's; she'd lazed on the couch with them after grudgingly agreeing to watch _Lesbian Vampire Killers _("It's _British comedy horror_," Castle had said, and she'd rolled her eyes but hadn't even made a comment); she'd sat in the kitchen while they cooked tandoori chicken; she'd eaten with them at the table, slouched in an overstuffed armchair that Castle had dragged over; and then, after Martha had gone back to Chet's, she'd played a rousing game of Monopoly in the living room with him and Alexis. The whole time, he'd had been a little quieter, a little more introverted, and Beckett had been softer, easier to persuade, quicker to smile at him. So he'd pushed his luck after she'd said she was going to bed, right after Alexis had meandered up to her room, and he'd followed her upstairs like a small, shaky puppy only to find that her patience did, in fact, still have limits.

He enters the office and sits down at his computer, stares at the screen, opens Outlook, closes Outlook, opens Firefox, closes Firefox, opens NepentheNikki3 (the original plot had hinged upon a once-depressed amnesiac, and while he's long-since scrapped that, the working title remains unchanged), closes NepentheNikki3, and finally slams the laptop shut, walks to his room, changes, and lies in bed, staring at his ceiling, trying not to twitch or thrash from side to side like a small, petulant child.

Half an hour later, he's leapt to his feet at a creaking floorboard, at the sound of a horn honking, and, most recently, at some kind of aircraft noise, his brain screaming _Beckett_ and launching him out of bed, heart palpitating. Still on his feet from the aircraft scare, his chest pounding, he grabs his pillow and his comforter and trudges to the doorway of the spare room, stopping just outside. Too frayed to think about how ridiculous he looks, he lumbers down onto the floor, wraps himself in the duvet, lays his head back on the pillow, and falls asleep almost immediately, content that, out of all the things he can't control, he will at least be able to hear if Beckett needs him.

When he wakes again it's suddenly bright and his calf hurts. He squints his eyes open to see his daughter staring at him with a look that is part pity, part disbelief. She's vigorously rubbing her foot, which she must have jammed into his leg. Her other hand rests on the light switch.

"Dad, really? Why?" she asks groggily.

"Why are you wandering the house in the middle of the night?" he responds, using his best accusatory whisper.

"Scratchy throat," she says quietly, arching an eyebrow at him. "I wanted juice."

He rubs his eyes and props himself up on his elbows. "Are you getting sick?"

"No, Dad, I think it's just the dry air, and stop changing the subject. I'm not the one that deserves to be interrogated here."

"A lot of doctors say that sleeping on the floor is really good for your back."

She blinks at him. "What do you think Detective Beckett would do if she opened her door and found you sleeping out here?"

"Club me to death with a crutch," he says decisively. "That's why we should keep our voices looooow."

She shakes her head slowly. "It's – it's a little bit sad, Dad." She pauses, tilts her head. "And extremely stalkerish."

"Alexis, if I teach you nothing else, let it be that sometimes we must obsessively stalk the people we love when they really need it."

"Very wise," she says, patronizing, and then tilts her head some more. "Do you actually love her? I mean, I know you love her, but do you – you know?"

He freezes, still propped on his elbows, because _Are you in love with Beckett? _is a very different question from _Do you love Beckett? _or _Would you like to have unrestrained, wild sex with Beckett?_ Although he knows the answers to the last two questions instinctively (he's known he wanted her clothes off since the very first time he turned around and saw her lithe arm holding a tin shield, and he's known he loved her in some way for a long time, probably since she told him about her mother's murder), he has somehow never mulled over the first, which is possibly why it was so easy for him to fall back into a relationship with Gina over the summer.

She watches him, and he can tell she's analyzing his idiotic, dumbfounded expression. She finally walks over, crouches next to him, and ruffles his hair. "Never mind, Dad. I'm going to go get some juice. You're an excellent stalker."

She pads away to the kitchen, and she's gone for several minutes, but he's still frozen on his elbows when she heads back to her room. "You want me to leave the hallway light on or turn it off?" she whispers, apparently deciding to ignore her father's descent into insanity.

"Dunno," he mumbles.

She surveys his setup. "It's less pathetic in the dark," she says decisively, and flicks off the switch before heading back to her room.

He doesn't go back to sleep. He flops back down onto his back and stares numbly into the darkness. Usually, his brain is in overdrive: he's always thinking of new plotlines for a novel or alternative theories about who committed a murder or new and exciting ways to have fun, but it's like the past two days and his conversation with Alexis have anesthetized his brain. He can't think; he can only lie there, torpidly gazing in the direction of Beckett's door.

Because he's still up and staring in that direction, he can see the sudden strip of light appear from the bottom of her doorway, and because he's still only firing on three or four neurons, he doesn't consider potential death or privacy issues. He just shoves himself to his feet, raps twice on the door, and, without waiting for a response, pushes it open and walks into the room.

Beckett's nightstand lamp casts shadows around the room, and it's worse, somehow, than if all the lights were on, to see her sitting up in bed, the dimness only half illuminating the tears streaked down her face. She's busy wiping them away with the arm of her long-sleeve shirt that she's pulled over her wrist, but she freezes as he walks into the room, watching him in wary shock.

"Bad dream?" he asks gruffly, idiotically, standing gawkily in the doorway.

"Castle, please go away," she says, voice strained and scratchy.

"I think I'm in love with you," he says candidly, the filter between his brain and his mouth irretrievably lost. "I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm in love with you." He pauses, tilts his head. "No, no, I'm in love with you, just that. Do over - pretend that's all I've said. I'm in love with you."

Beckett buries her teary face in her sleeve-covered hands and groans, loudly.

_Keep talking_, his anesthetized brain conveys, _keep talking or God only knows what will happen. _The words tumble out of him in a rush. "It doesn't really change anything. I kind of just realized it, thanks to Alexis, go figure, and I've known I've loved you for approximately forever, but I think I've actually been in love with you for a while, too, even if I wasn't all the way aware. So you don't have to feel awkward or weird, because it wasn't awkward or weird before now. Please don't feel awkward or weird."

"Why are you doing this?" she moans into her hands.

"I was sleeping on the floor outside your room," he confesses, because he has apparently lost all of his filters and his common sense and his will to live tonight. "I couldn't sleep anywhere else, but I could sleep on the floor outside your room."

She finally peers over her hands with red-rimmed eyes. "Are you drunk?" He shakes his head no, just once. "High?" He shakes his head again. "Hopped up on meth? Hallucinating? Having a stroke?" He keeps shaking his head.

"I promise," he says, hoping his sincerity leeches into his voice.

She shakes her head, scrubs her eyes with the sleeve-covered heels of her hands. "I can't – God Castle, whatever you want, I just can't –" she breaks off, looking lost.

"You don't have to do anything," he says firmly. "You can't think I came in here to –" he pauses, collecting himself, and finally gets a grip on his runaway mouth. "I will do anything for you. Including continually harass you even though you keep telling me to go away because I'm not sure that going away is what you really need. But if you tell me to leave now, I will leave."

Her lips part, and he braces himself. But then her bloodshot eyes flick over him, and he must look like an absolute wreck, because her chest rises and falls in a huge sigh, and she leans over and pushes back the covers on the other side of the bed. "Only so you're not sleeping on the floor," she says, her voice still clogged and nasal.

"Your concern for my spine is touching," he responds as he walks toward the bed as quickly as he can without jogging. He has no desire to give her any time to reconsider.

"You're slow enough as it is," Beckett retorts softly as he slides under the covers. "If you keep torturing your back now, your 60-year-old self won't stand a chance of keeping up."

His breath catches, because there she is, lying under the same covers as him and referring to them, together, in twenty years, which is closer to an _I love you, too_ than he'd honestly ever expected from Beckett. He shifts slightly, stretches out and rests a hand in the space between them in the middle of the bed. His heart stumbles a beat when she reaches out and silently laces her fingers through his.

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Thank you to everyone out there reading and reviewing. This story is already way longer than I'd anticipated (well, okay, so I hadn't so much thought about an actual length when I began writing, but if I had, I probably would have thought of it being shorter), but I'm having a stupid amount of fun thanks to the virtual audience!


	9. Chapter 9

Castle can't say what pulled him awake, but he can sense the light beaming through the room even with his eyes closed. And then the mattress shifts and dips a bit, and the only reason it would shift and dip would be because another person is in bed with him, and all of a sudden the previous day, breaking up with Gina and watching British movies and eating Indian food and playing Monopoly and sleeping outside Beckett's room and oh, that abrupt confession.

His head isn't pounding. His mouth doesn't feel stuffed full of cotton. His stomach already has its normal morning hunger pangs. There is no way he's hung over, which means there is no way he can adequately explain his hazy late-night admission. And Beckett, goddamn Beckett, would know that, because she is a detective, a brilliant detective, who would have noticed if he'd stumbled into her room drunk instead of just somewhat dazed.

He sucks in a huge lungful of air and moves his hands up to his face, scrubbing at his still-closed eyes. _You're in her bed_, he reminds himself, _you're in her bed because she let you in her bed and then she talked about the future and then she held your hand_. And it's true, and it means that everything might be okay, but honestly, honestly, what kind of _idiot_ tells someone he's in love with her before they've slept together, before they've even kissed?

He pries his eyes open, and she's lying on her side, maybe a foot away, staring at him, her hair tousled over her cheek. She smiles as his eyes flick over her face. His throat feels funny at the sight of her, tight and tickly. He's not sure that he can survive this, not if his affection for Beckett continues to mirror the symptoms of anaphylactic shock.

"I like waking up next to you," he says, his voice coming out scratchy, exhausted. "Also, were you watching me sleep?"

"I was watching you twitch violently and generally look distressed," she responds. "I was trying not to be insulted, actually."

"Well," he says, but he loses the thread of his thoughts because _stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid_ has been pulsing in the back of his brain since he'd remembered the night before.

"Castle," she says, suddenly quiet, serious. "It was really late. And it's been an incredibly stressful weekend. And you were exhausted. And distressed. It's not…" she trails off.

"It was silly, ridiculous really, don't know what came over me," he says, latching on to the lifeline she's thrown him, but then she blinks and her eyes stay closed just a millisecond too long, and when she opens them again they are a little darker, a little less joyful.

"Of course," she says, voice just a little too low.

_Oh_, Castle thinks, _so many wrong decisions_. "I mean –" he stutters, because now he's worked himself into knots and he's not sure how to untangle himself.

"Don't be inane, Castle," she says, a warning. She smiles again but it's not like how she smiled at him when he was waking up.

"Detective Beckett, I am not an inane man," he responds softly, trying to reengage her by encouraging her to mock him, but she's smiling wanly and he's not honestly paying attention to what he's saying.

"I need Advil and I need food," Beckett says, her voice quiet and unwavering. He knows she's asking (well, demanding) because it will get him up and out of bed and away from her, but he has no argument, no recourse, so pushes the sheets off and swings his legs down and numbly walks toward the kitchen.

(In his mind, running through on constant replay, the morning was different, and it went like this:

Sunlight was sheeting into the room when he opened his eyes and he was surrounded by the reality that he was in love and in bed with Beckett. Her face was three inches from his and her half-open eyes were vortexes, pulling in the light of the room and drawing him slowly, inexorably toward her, millimeter by millimeter.

The only sounds were his breath and her breath, softy swishing in and out in perfect time, and the soft thudding of his heart against his ribcage. He stared at the planes of her face illuminated by the soft dawn light, at the slight dusting of freckles over her nose, at the soft, pink curve of her slightly parted lips, at the messy curls of dark hair, at the deep, cloudy jade of her languorous eyes.

The room was settled in the quiet still of daybreak and even the subtle, steady motion of their chests seemed to be too much movement, their slow expulsions of breath swirling too many molecules of air. Even so, he was shifting, always shifting, drawing closer to her, cutting the distance between them by infinite tiny fractions, and suddenly the realization that she was doing the same, that they were drifting toward each other in the vast space of the bed in the hazy quietness, washed over him, and he was bursting with the knowledge that soon their fingers or their mouths or their arms would slowly, roughly slide together and, oh, if he could only freeze this moment.

But then they were tangling together, still in slow motion, his arms skidding over her stomach, sliding past her ribs to wrap around her back; her smooth calf, then her toned thigh threading between his legs, and he was simultaneously full of crushing desire and overwhelming contentment as they folded around and into each other.

Their lips met, brushing lazily, sleepily together, and their hands languidly skimmed over and then under each other's shirts, then pants, and they shifted and swirled around the bed, still spooled together, until hours later when they finally collapsed in an exhausted, sticky pile of somnolent limbs.)

Instead, he burns the eggs and spills the Advil on the floor. When he returns to her bedroom, awkwardly balancing a plate of food and a bottle of water and a glass of orange juice and three Advil, she is standing stiffly next to the window, leaning heavily on the wall and gazing stonily into the painfully bright light that still streams into the room.

"I have breakfast," he murmurs quietly, shifting the plate an inch toward her and sloshing some orange juice against his shirt. It's immediately cold and sticky against his skin. He desperately hopes that she'll shake her head and call him an awkward klutz and then maybe berate his lack of ability to do something as simple as fry an egg without burning it.

"Thanks, Castle," she says as she gathers up her crutches and hobbles to the small table in the corner of the room.

"You seem…" he starts, but he's not sure why he even began, because he's not going to say listless or sad or, heaven help him, lonely, and so he trails off and leaves his words hanging pathetically in the middle of the room.

"Better," she supplies for him as she lowers herself into the chair. "I'm thinking I'll go home today, actually, get settled back at my place." She has the same tone that she uses in interrogations, silk over steel, the sleek smoothness of her words only accentuating the absolute resolve beneath. He knows, like he knows for every poor suspect that goes up against her, that arguing will only make it worse.

"Oh," is all he says, not bothering to hide his disappointment, as he carries her food over to her.

"I don't mean to seem ungrateful, Castle," she responds in a tone that is not at all grateful, "but you have your life to get back to, and I have mine."

He sits perched on the edge of the bed for a minute as she begins to eat, but she ignores him and, though he opens his mouth again and again to apologize or to argue or to once more declare his undying love for her, he can't think of a way to begin that won't push her even further away from him. Eventually he gives up, gets up, and walks back to the kitchen. He stands in front of the fridge but can't quite force himself to open it, and in the end he just wraps his arms around his stomach and leans his forehead into the cold metal.

(In his mind, in the fantasy that won't stop torturing him, they spent the whole day in bed, unwilling to break apart for anything as trivial as food or water or air, reaffirming their adulation with every touch and every breath.)

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I am sorry, faithful readers, that you had to wait for approximately ten thousand years for this chapter and then it was slightly depressing. My silly job has a way of taking over every bit of my life sometimes. The good (?) news is that, believe it or not, we're starting to approach the end of this particular story, although I'm already thinking of sequel ideas (which is definitely ahead of myself, since first I need to find the time to finish this). As always, thanks for reading and please review!


	10. Chapter 10

"You," Castle says, walking into the room with purposeful strides, "are a detective."

"What do you want, Castle?" Becket queries testily, her head snapping up to stare at him.

She's curled on the bed, her leg propped up on a pillow, her torso leaning awkwardly against a lump of blankets so that she can face the laptop that Alexis carried into her room hours and hours ago. Castle had spent the majority of day working (or, as his lovely daughter put it, "hiding and sulking like an unproductive coward in your office instead of trying to repair your entirely fixable situation"). Alexis had scrounged up the old Toshiba for Beckett (who had stayed holed up in the guest room), she had cooked and fed her some sort of organic tomato bisque, and then she'd managed to weasel her way into the guest bed for a special laptop viewing of _Vertigo. _(Castle had not been spying. It was his house. It was necessary for him to know what was going on. And he had to leave his office to go to the bathroom sometimes. Every half-hour wasn't too much. Maybe he'd developed a sudden-onset prostate problem.)

"A fairly brilliant detective," Castle continues, nonplussed. He's not going to let himself get tangled up again. Beckett's duffel is neatly packed at the foot of the bed.

"Thank you," she responds, acerbic. She's staring at the laptop screen instead of his face.

"And you're really, really hot," he adds. Goal accomplished – she looks back up at him.

"I'm sorry, Castle, is there a point to this?"

"Yes. I'm getting there."

"Well, you might want to move a little faster. I have a taxi coming to pick me up in half an hour."

He winces. Score for Beckett, but he won't let that dissuade him. "And you're tenacious. And sometimes you're a little bit nice, when you're not busy being mean. And did I mention you're kind of gorgeous?"

Beckett shifts herself into a sitting position on the bed, not taking her eyes off him. At first he thinks she might just be trying to figure out where he's going with all this, but the more he looks, the more he recognizes her slight squint as the beginnings of a glare. Regarding him silently, she lets him squirm. His Beckett, she knows how to push a suspect. He presses on, trying not to be terrified.

"So I'm sitting in my office all day, having a terrible time doing anything, and I can't quite put my finger on what's got me so upset other than the fact that you're clearly upset and leaving, which, obviously, could be enough right there, but then it comes to me – I feel like an idiot for feeling like an idiot for being in love with you."

_Come on, Beckett_, he thinks. _Blink. Shrug. Cry. Fling yourself across the bed and into my arms and declare your eternal love for me as you rip your shirt off. _But she just sits there, frozen in the same position with the same expression.

"I mean, who wouldn't be in love with you? Especially after hurling themselves around after you for a couple of years. I challenge anyone to not be in love with you after watching you work for that long."

She keeps staring. He plows relentlessly ahead.

"Which brings me back to my original point. You are a very, very good detective. You had to know. I mean, Alexis knew. Gina knew. Hell, even I wasn't completely unaware, retrospectively."

He pauses, trying not to be too pathetic. She hasn't moved or twitched or given him any sign of anything since she first started watching him. He stumbles on. "So, there you have it again. My confession. I'm re-confessing. Please stop looking at me with that steely detective glare."

"You're usually so good with words, Castle," Beckett finally says, her voice low and throaty.

"Be nice. After I was finished with my several hours of sulking I spent the next several hours figuring out what to say to you."

"And came up with 'really hot' and 're-confessing'?"

"You're lucky I spit anything at all out. You terrify me, Beckett."

A corner of her mouth twitches a little. "And you're one of the ones I like."

"But how much?" he responds, playfully. She flinches, and he immediately wishes he could take it back. "Sorry."

"What do you want me to say, Castle? I break a leg and get stuck at your place and you find out I'm not quite as physically or emotionally together as you'd like to think, which causes you to suddenly decide that you're desperately in love with me, only that declaration doesn't even stand up to my implying that you were sleepy during its recitation."

"You don't think I'm serious."

She shakes her head, ducking to stare at the comforter. "I know you're serious right now. I just think it's been an overwhelming weekend for everyone."

Castle takes three steps forward and sits in front of her on the bed, leaning forward to catch her eyes. "I don't buy it," he whispers fiercely. "You're too smart. I bet you knew, at least a little, before I did, and I bet you're deflecting now because you're in a shitty situation with the bruised ribs and the cast and the nightmares and you don't want anyone but anyone seeing you like this, but it's too late because I have and it doesn't make me think you're weak and it doesn't make me pity you, Beckett."

She leans back, and regards him critically for what feels like hours. Finally, she bobs her head a little. "Last spring, when you walked out of the precinct with Gina, I was about to tell you that I'd broken up with Demming."

He fishes for words, but he can do nothing but gape.

"I would have gone to the Hamptons with you."

He deflates, casts about for words, comes up with nothing but a kind of empty, hollowed-out feeling. "I hate myself," he murmurs melodramatically.

She tilts her head. "Mmm. I hated you too, just a little."

"You really know how to comfort a guy, Beckett."

She smiles sadly at him. "I had a pretty awful summer, and it wasn't for any one reason. But I wouldn't have – it wouldn't have been – if I hadn't felt –"

He understands what she's saying in a sudden flash, and he responds the only way he possibly can, because they've been talking around the issue for the past two days, the past two years, really, and even though he's a novelist he feels he's big enough to acknowledge when words can only keep you at a stalemate. So he leans forward and forward some more, and she watches him but she doesn't shift away. He's so close, and it's not new, he's been this close before, but every time it makes his heart thud unevenly in his chest and this time it's no different, but then it is, because he grazes his lips over hers, gently, not really a kiss, just a question.

"Yes," she breathes out.

He smiles. "You just can't stay out of my brain, can you?" When he talks, their lips skid together. It is already driving him insane.

He can feel her smile back. Oh, God, they are in bed together and she is smiling against his lips. "You don't want me in your brain?"

"Crazy. You are making me crazy in so many different ways right now."

"What a noble mind is here overthrown." As she says it, she slowly lowers herself until she is lying on her back, gazing up at him, her eyes dark, her hair haloed around her face.

There is not enough oxygen in the room.

She's exhibiting her own gravitational pull, he thinks, as he slowly lowers himself over her, his elbows coming to rest on either side of her chest, carefully holding himself up with his knees to keep himself off her bruised torso. "I now will forever recall," he murmurs, his head slowly dropping toward hers, "that here I was, trying my hardest to seduce you, and of all the Shakespeare that's out there, you went and quoted Ophelia at me."

"Pray you, love, remember," she exhales.

_You are deliberately defying me_, he tries to say, or _Stay away from any streams,_ but he can't force any words past the tightness in his throat because she has just said the word _love _and it was directed at him. As always, Beckett saves him, reaching up and grabbing the back of his head and pulling him down to her.

Her tongue is in his mouth two seconds later, and he's trembling like some Harlequin heroine, shudders reverberating through his arms. He's working so hard to keep from collapsing onto her, but then her hands slide from his head to his back and tug him down anyway. Her body is long and lithe and warmer than he'd expected.

"Oof," she says into his kiss, and he suddenly remembers her leg, her ribs, and here he is rolling around on top of her like some gigantic buffoon.

He immediately draws back up onto his elbows. Her mouth follows his, so that he has to murmur his question into her lips. "Are you okay? Did I hurt you?"

She rolls her eyes at him. "How about we call my safe word pineapples and it's a go?"

He kisses her chin, her eyebrow, her ear. "From the greatest playwright that ever lived to the greatest novelist."

"But can you live up to the ego?" Her eyes flick down between them.

He kisses her forehead, her cheek, her nose. "Not tonight I can't. Maybe not for a while with those ribs and that leg of yours. But I am a champion cuddler."

"You're trying to trick me into staying." She smiles up at him as she says it.

He kisses her neck, her jaw, her mouth. "Do I _have_ to trick you?"

"I'm not the one running our conversation in circles this time."

He kisses her mouth again, rests his forehead against hers, murmurs, "Stay."

"Yes," she says.

x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x

Thanks so much for reading, everyone! All of your happy feelings and positive vibes and rainbows and butterflies have made this a really, really fun experience.


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